News & Info

For New Pictures at the MIA, Stan Douglas presents six large-scale photographs examining the historical past and present. Three of Douglas’s prints addressing moments of historic social change will be installed in the Perlman Gallery (368) for the “Then” section. While the “Now” section will present three recent photographs of accumulated objects juxtaposed with artworks in the MIA’s permanent collection.

New Pictures 7: Stan Douglas, Then and Now will be on view from October 11, 2012 – February 10, 2013. The Newman Lecture on Contemporary Photography will take place the night of the opening, October 11, 2012, 7-8 p.m., Pillsbury Auditorium.

Support for Newman Lecture is provided by the Arnold Newman Foundation. Generous support for New Pictures is provided by the W. Duncan and Nivin MacMillan Foundation

Photographers are avid travelers. Since the late 19th century, they have carried their cameras to unfamiliar neighborhoods and around the world to take pictures of people, places, and cultures. “Strangers in a Strange Land: Photographers’ First Impressions” features photographs that document photographers’ encounters with foreign subjects and lands. These seemingly fleeting first impressions often become lasting records of historical memory. The exhibition looks closely at how photographers translate a sense of culture and place through imagery. It also considers the power of first impressions to shape historical representations of cultures. How do the photographs presented inform our understanding of the global culture, particularly in the early 20th century, before globalism?

Boris Mikhailov

Sots Arts, 1981

The Alfred and Ingrid Lenz Harrison Fund

2010.13.4

“Strangers in a Strange Land: Photographers’ First Impressions” will feature a range of classic masterpieces in the MIA’s collection: Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California; Philip Jones Griffiths’s Wounded Female Civilian, South Vietnam; Francis Frith’s The Pyramids of Dahshoor; selections from Diane Arbus’s A Box of Ten Photographs, 1970; and Paul Stand’s Mexico portfolio. The exhibition will also include recent acquisitions, such as Boris Mikhailov’s Luriki, and Martin Parr’s New Brighton, Merseyside.

We are pleased to announce that New Pictures 7 and the Newman Lecture on Contemporary Photography will feature Stan Douglas, winner of this year’s International Center of Photography’s Infinity Award. The Vancouver native works in film, still photography and installation. His artwork has been exhibited internationally, including in three Venice Biennials and three DOCUMENTAs. Douglas’s photographs examine how images and memory shape our interpretation of history. To create his photographs, Douglas often assumes the role of a photojournalist who travels back in time to reinterpret key events in social and political history, such as the 1975 revolution in Angola and social riots in Canada during the 1930s and 70s. After conducting intensive research, he restages these events using actors, costumes, props, and sets. The final pictures are meticulously composed down to the slightest gestures and period styles.

At the MIA, Douglas will present six large-scale photographs examining the historical past and present. Three of Douglas’s prints addressing moments of historic social change will be installed in the Perlman Gallery (368) for the “Then” section. While the “Now” section will present three recent photographs of accumulated objects juxtaposed with artworks in the MIA’s permanent collection.

New Pictures 7: Stan Douglas, Then and Now will be on view from October 11, 2012 – February 10, 2013. The Newman Lecture on Contemporary Photography will take place the night of the opening, October 11, 2012, 7-8 p.m., Pillsbury Auditorium. Please save the date for a big night of activity! Support for Newman Lecture is provided by the Arnold Newman Foundation.

Belgian photographer Martine Franck (1938-2012) was a member of Magnum Photos for over three decades, and continued to show her work as recently as a few months ago. As a freelance photographer, she shot celebrity portraits and documentary images for Time, Fortune and Vogue. Franck studied art history in her youth before pursuing photography through her own images, and is also remembered for her support for various photographic agencies and humanitarian foundations.

Martine Franck

Col de L’homme Mort, Alpes de Haute Provence

The Ethelyn Bros Photography Purchase Fund

2000.111.1

She met Henri Cartier-Bresson at Magnum in 1966, and the two later married. Franck was a co-founder and president of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, which she began in 2002, two years prior to Cartier-Bresson’s death.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Martine’s Legs, 1968

The Alfred and Ingrid Lenz Harrison Fund

97.110.2.4

Read about Martine Franck from the photo editors at Time and The Guardian, and see more of her images, here.

Watch for photographs by former New Pictures artist, Jason Fulford, in the next Harper’s magazine issue. Jason just returned from shooting the Olympics in London. His photographs will appear with text by award-winning writer and journalist, Geoff Dyer. Dyer’s 2005 book, The Ongoing Moment, offers a history of photography via the metaphorical encounters of famous photographers, from the perspective of a writer who admits he doesn’t even own a camera.

Do you remember when it was cooler than 90 degrees every day? Peer back beyond the humid haze. Only mere months ago, it did happen–the camera doesn’t lie–and British photographer Martin Parr’s pictures are our evidence. Summer weekends fill up fast and only a few remain for a viewing of his cold-weather photos. New Pictures 6: Martin Parr, featuring winter photographs Parr shot in the Twin Cities as an MIA-commissioned project, closes in under three weeks.

If you haven’t stopped by the 2nd floor Linda & Lawrence Perlman Gallery (262) recently, Parr’s January pics of Minneapolis winter sports will be on display through Sunday, August 5th. After that, the images will take a break in storage for a while, however, the MIA Photography & New Media department are proud to announce the acquisition of six Martin Parr photographs into our collection.

Come in and enjoy the free-flowing air-conditioning while you enjoy the display of twelve of Parr’s visual observations of our local winter activities.

American photographer Margaret Bourke-White (1904 – 1971), who would have been 108 last week, approached documentary photography with a zeal that left many of her LIFE contemporaries jealous of her “scoops.”

Initially gaining notice from her pictures of economic crisis in 1930s United States, she was the only American photographer in Russia when the Germans bombed Moscow in 1941, and was given access to photograph Joseph Stalin, who she later stated was her most difficult subject because he stood like a stone.

Bourke-White followed stories around Europe, from Italy into Africa. Not known for traveling light, the photographer carried up to 600 pounds of equipment on assignment until all her gear was lost when her ship was torpedoed en route to Africa in December of 1942. After surviving the sinking but unable to save her equipment, she downgraded to only 250 pounds but continued to favor larger format cameras due to the negatives’ detail.

Throughout Germany she followed the Allied advance and captured shocking, iconic images at the Buchenwald concentration camp in April, 1945. In India, Bourke-White shifted from the aftermath of war to a peaceful 1946 portrait of Mahatma Gandhi, who required her to learn how to use a spinning wheel before she was allowed to photograph him.

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts wishes a happy belated birthday to a photographer whose commitment to capturing the best images affected not only her own life and career, but continues to inspire photographers today.

Like many of us, Werner Bischof wrote letters and journal entries chronicling his thoughts, concerns and expectations. In retrospect, such correspondence among artists offers valuable depth into the legacy of their work and lives.

In 1953 Bischof wrote to fellow Magnum photographer, Robert Capa, whom Bischof referred to as a father-figure, “I am sick of doing nothing and eager to leave for South America. It is the only place I am interested in – as far as possible from civilization, back to nature”. Six months later, even less fond of the masses of highways and “assembly line” way of living, he wrote to Henri Cartier-Bresson, “I am soon going on my great trip over Central America [...] to see simple people with more heart and less [...] television sets.”

Unfortunately, all did not go well in Peru, where Bischof died in a car accident. Despite his short life, he made masterful work, and though he photographed difficult subjects like war and famine, he continued to “seek out beautiful things.” Filling his compositions with strong visuals, Bischof framed rich design elements around both natural studies and action shots. His lighter scenes of children playing and people at rest are as effective as his heavier pictures of active soldiers and emaciated figures.

Werner’s eldest son, Marco, manages his father’s estate and frequently communicated with former MIA curator Ted Hartwell. After a 1996 visit from Zurich, Marco wrote of the Boundary Waters, “we spent a wonderful week exploring more of the beauty of your country. Full with memories [...]. Physically we are here now – I guess our souls need some time till they arrive.”

Marco continued collaborating with the MIA, which presented Werner Bischof Photographs 1932-1954 in 2003-04, along with a CD biography by Marco Bischof, Carl Philabaum and Gary Brandenberg, Werner Bischof: Life and Work of a Photographer 1916-1954. The CD, which Marco initially referred to as Werner Bischof: Dream of Purity, housed an archive of 1,000+ images and included notes, sketches, interviews, and letters such as the following excerpt written by Werner from Calcutta in 1952, to his wife, Rosellina:

Of course, my dearest – there is beauty too, temple dances of dreamlike beauty in the south … I am an observer in the abattoir of beauty.

On display at the MIA again soon, view Bischof’s gelatin silver print “In the Court of the Meiji Temple, Tokyo, Japan” from 1951. Related post: Werner Bischof’s “dream of purity”

Documentary images picture a place at a moment; the best work of the genre give life to the event with a critical perspective. Minnesota-based photographer Tom Arndt described the experience of approaching New York’s Little Italy and Chinatown 1981 Independence Day celebrations as entering a “wall of sound.” In the dark evening rain, without icons of the national anniversary, Arndt’s images picture the balance of trouble and triumph. Are we viewing the aftermath of protests, raids or war, rather than the revelry of independence? With dark silhouettes framed by smoke and crowds cowering from explosive shooting sparks, this is gritty freedom.

Opening Thursday, June 7th, The Weinstein Gallery joins the Gordon Parks foundation and New York’s Museum of Modern Art to present Gordon Parks: At 100, an exhibition of over 40 photographs organized to “reflect the photographer’s cross-cultural, poetic, and humanistic vision.”

A productive artist and humanitarian who worked in poetry, writing, composing and film-making as well as photography, Parks (1912-2006) was deeply committed to social justice and worked on diverse conceptual ideas with photos ranging from civil commentary to high fashion and celebrity portraiture.

By virtue of the medium, photographers share their insight more directly than other artists through various platforms. Many work for newspapers to share images across a wide viewer base, conveying concern for human conditions in representations of crises – war, famine, poverty, natural devastation or human-made suffering – as well as with relatable moments during more peaceful times. Yet, the role of a photojournalist can vary from a photographer not shooting for an employer, requiring a balance of internal and external pressures to produce certain images.

Werner Bischof struggled with the sensationalist expectation often pushed on photojournalists. In one letter to his wife, Rosellina, he confessed, “This story-chasing has become hard to take – not physically, but mentally.” However, he attempted to produce a sincere vision of events during his few years of work, prior to his accidental death in 1954 while on assignment in Lima, Peru.

Bischof wrote, “The artist is a person whom nature has endowed with an exceptional sensitivity, who conveys the impressions his environment makes on him in terms of his own world. The requirements for this are a solid technical training, the study of the different means of expression and, not least, enormous willpower to prevail over all doubts; it is a hard road, and fortune smiles upon few.”

Werner Bischof

In The Court of The Meiji Temple, Japan, 1951

Gift of Frederick B. Scheel

2007.35.19

View Bischof’s gelatin silver print “In the Court of the Meiji Temple, Tokyo, Japan” from 1951 on display at the MIA again, soon.

This image is presented as a “thumbnail” because it is protected by copyright. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts respects the rights of artists who retain the copyright to their work

Gagosian Gallery in New York presents Richard Avedon: Murals & Portraits through July 12th. Avedon’s twenty to thirty-five foot wide murals and related portraits, from the 1960s and ’70s, picture high profile individuals like Andy Warhol and Allen Ginsberg, and political radicals The Chicago Seven.

A press release and checklist are available on the Gagosian website, along with 11 images from the show and 10 installation views.

Dates Friday, May 4th, 2012 – Thursday, July 12th, 2012

Time Gallery hours

Monday through Saturday: 10a.m.–6p.m.

The gallery will be closed Saturday, May 26 & Monday, May 28 for a national holiday

The Photography & New Media department and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts wishes congratulations to New Pictures 5 artist Jason Fulford for his recognition in Aperture’s summer issue. A non-profit dedicated to promoting the development and appreciation of photography, Aperture was founded in 1952 by Ansel Adams, Minor White, Dorothea Lange and Barbara Morgan, and it continues to advance great work in imagery.

Jason’s Mushroom Project is featured on the cover of the upcoming Issue 207, along with a six-page spread of photographs from his New Pictures installation, shots of his mushrooms in multiple galleries throughout the MIA, and an interview with the artist, “Jason Fulford: Mushroom Collector.”

If you missed Jason’s exhibition at the MIA, watch a synopsis here. The issue also includes New Pictures 6 artist Martin Parr on location in Atlanta, in Up and Down Peachtree.

What is a portrait? Richard Avedon, who would have been 89 years old today, worked with his sitters to engage their persona. He said people often came to him to be photographed “as they would go to a doctor or fortune teller”: to learn about themselves. When he photographed his father, then age 83, portraying him as “still fantastically vibrant and hungry and angry and alive” rather than wise, Avedon didn’t want to show the pictures to his dad, fairly certain he wouldn’t like them. “My photographs show his impatience—I love that quality in him—but seeing it would frighten him. [...] He’s much more interested in looking sage, so my sense of what’s beautiful is very different from his.’”

Beyond that familial exchange, Avedon was cognizant that a sitter and photographer may have different visions of the final product. Varied perspectives on portraiture originate, perhaps, from a different understanding of the role of the person behind the lens. Former MIA curator Ted Hartwell mused, “The tradition of the portrait as a kind of monument or idealization is an attempt to portray that person in the way they would like to be seen, whereas [Avedon] is very forthright. [...looking] honestly and directly at things that make us typically uncomfortable.”

Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe, Actress, May 6th, 1957

The Christina N. and Swan J. Turnblad Memorial Fund

81.94.10

Avedon was certainly aware of the position of the photographer as a subjective intermediary with judgment and biases. He believed a “portrait is not a likeness. The moment a motion or fact is transformed into a photograph, it is no longer a fact, but opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate, but none of them are true.”

This image is presented as a “thumbnail” because it is protected by copyright. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts respects the rights of artists who retain the copyright to their work

Today, if a parent snaps a picture and a toddler asks to see it right away, no one bats an eye. When Edwin Land’s child made the request seven decades ago, she inspired the discovery of instant imagery.

Born over a hundred years ago on May 7th (1909-1991), Land pioneered what became known as Polaroids in the 1940s. He invented immediate picture technology on vacation in Santa Fe after his three-year-old daughter asked why she couldn’t see the picture he had just taken of her. Well, why not? He took a walk and, within an hour, visualized an idea to produce a finished print in the field: placing darkroom chemistry between two sheets of film.

Ansel Adams, always enthusiastic about photographic technique and developments, embraced Land’s innovations. Beginning in 1948, Adams worked with his Land camera and offered feedback as a consultant for 35 years. Adams was a strong advocate for the film, writing, ” It is unfortunate that so many photographers have thought of the Land camera as a ‘toy,’ a casual device for ‘fun’ pictures [...] The process has revolutionized the art and craft of photography”

A writer of many books and manuals on photography, Adams first published Polaroid Land Photography in 1963 and revised an edition in 1978, dedicated to “Edwin H. Land, creator of new horizons for the mind and spirit.”

Happy birthday Edwin Land, and thank you for laying the foundation for instant imagery!

Martin Parr relished the challenge of shooting “something half decent” over his three day visit to the Twin Cities in January, where “people are addicted to this cold weather” for outdoor winter activities. In regards to making pictures in America, Parr noted, “virtually no one objects to being photographed. [...] No wonder there’s so much good American photography.”

Yesterday, Chris Roberts of Minnesota Public Radio discussed MIA exhibition, The Sports Show, and its examination of sports and media. These intermingling spheres reach into wider culture, as shown by the range of new museum visitors, many of whom “know more about some of the pieces” than curator David Little, an odd combination of an art historian and avid sports fan.